The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(21)
“Sorry,” I said, patting my stomach and wincing as I sat down on the sofa. “Turns out drinking vodka all night and starting the day with a greasy breakfast burrito is not a winning combination.”
My wallet wasn’t where I had left it, and my host had a new bulge in his hip pocket. Perfect.
“I’ve been there,” he laughed. “So we were talking about your, uh, collection.”
The front door rattled on its hinges, and heavy footsteps slapped against the marble tile. I looked over as our new guest arrived, a hard-eyed piece of bad news in a gray wool blazer. He peeled off the jacket as he walked, giving us a good look at the nickel-plated .38 in his shoulder holster. Clunky cop shoes, cop jacket, cop gun. I tried to make myself very, very small.
“What is this?” he said, looking at the three of us. “A sausage party?”
Artie forced a smile, giving a nervous laugh that didn’t fit his bodybuilder’s frame. “Hey Carl, just entertaining some fans. Sit down, grab a beer with us.”
“Yeah, that’s okay, you guys can go back to suckin’ each others’ dicks. Is she here?” He jerked his thumb toward the back of the house.
“Well yeah, but—”
A thunderstorm brewed behind the cop’s eyes. “But?”
If Artie had squeezed his beer bottle any tighter, it would have shattered in his hand. “Just…maybe don’t mark her up this time, okay? I’ve got some friends coming over tomorrow.”
Carl sauntered over, resting his hand on his shoulder holster.
“We got a problem here, Artie?” he asked quietly.
“No, no, of course not! Hey, go on back, she’ll be happy to see you.”
Carl stomped off. A picture formed in my mind, as shiny as the shield on his belt. Now I realized why something about Artie had put me on edge the moment he opened his front door. Down in the tunnel, Eric had described the men who dumped Stacy’s corpse.
Skinny guy with a face like a hatchet, and a bodybuilder with a blond perm. Hatchet-face was the one who liked waving his gun around.
It fit Artie and his pal Carl perfectly. Eric had only seen one badge. He just assumed they were both cops. A nasty little suspicion occurred to me.
“Wow,” I laughed, shaking my head. “Your friend’s pretty intense, huh?”
“He’s not my—I mean, he’s, yeah. Intense.” Kaufman sank into the sofa, pouting like a six-year-old.
“What’d you say his name was? Carl? I was watching something on the news last night about a detective, what was his name?” I pretended to concentrate, then snapped my fingers. “Carl White. That’s not Carl White, is it?”
“Nah, his name’s Holt. Listen, guys, I’d better let you go, he’s in a mood and this could get…I just don’t want to deal with it.” He handed me one of his business cards, crisp block lettering on soft cream. “Call me tonight, all right? I really want to talk to you about your collection.”
I promised I would, and Paolo followed me out into the sunlight. As I revved up the Mustang’s engine, he looked at me incredulously.
“That guy totally stole your wallet. It was on the sofa, and I watched him scoop it up.”
“I know.” I leaned back and smiled. “He was supposed to.”
Eleven
I tugged off the Black Eye, the steering wheel jerking in my other hand. A world of sensations flooded my senses with the force of a brick to the face. I dropped the talisman into my lap and gripped the wheel, taking shallow breaths until I felt human again.
“You,” Paolo said, staring at me from the passenger seat with one elbow cocked out the window, “are one weird dude.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What do you mean he was supposed to steal your wallet? You had me working all night on those IDs!”
“That’s right. He should be online right about now, digging up anything he can about Peter Greyson. Look at it from his perspective: he thinks I’ve got what he wants, a genuine snuff movie, which is also illegal as hell. I might be legit, I might be a crackpot, or I might be a cop trying to snare him in a sting. If he thinks he’s got a handle on who Peter Greyson is, he’ll feel safer, more likely to stick his neck out. Also, now I have a reason to go see him again, once I discover my wallet is missing.”
“So the business cards you had me do up—”
“Are for a real outfit in Los Angeles. EpiCalc was an accounting-software company that went belly-up last year. Kaufman will see the company’s legit, but he won’t have any way to verify whether Peter really was a sales manager there. Then there’s the receipts. If you see an ATM receipt showing a person’s account is fifty-eight bucks overdrawn, and then a liquor store cash receipt from that same afternoon for a twenty-dollar handle of vodka plus he’s splurging on a rented Mustang, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?”
“The guy’s in a downward spiral,” Paolo said.
“Right. Probably needs cash, too, and fast. Put the story together, and Peter Greyson is a desperate man in a bad situation. He’s the kind of person, in other words, who Kaufman can wave some money at and bend over a barrel.”
I pulled up outside the Love Connection. Before he got out, Paolo gave me a long look.